Extreme right-wing groups have always been a part of the American religious and political landscape. The era between the world wars, especially the 1930s, was a particularly volatile period, and by 1940, racist, nativist, and fascist groups had become so visible as to arouse public fears of insurrection or pro-Nazi sabotage.

Beautifully illustrated with more than 700 images, The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands tells the colourful stories behind the marvellous Hawaiian shirts: as cultural icons, evocative of the mystery and the allure of the Islands; as collectibles, valued by professional collectors and by the millions of tourists who still cherish the shirts hanging in their wardrobes; and as a lifestyle - casual, relaxed and fun. Drawing from hundreds of interviews, newspaper and magazine archives, and personal memorabilia, the author evokes the world of the designers, seamstresses, manufacturers and retailers of the Golden Age of the Aloha shirt (from the 1930s to the end of the 1950s), who created the industry and nurtured it from its single-sewing-machine shop beginnings to an enterprise of international scope and importance. Here are the fun-loving 1960s; interviews with collectors who preserve these shirts as fine works of art; and insights into the roles of coconut buttons, matched pockets, woven labels and exotic fabrics in the evolution of the Aloha shirt.

"Using quantitative methods, oral history, and a cultural analysis of written sources, the book explores how, by the 1920s, many middle-class and Lutheran residents had redefined themselves in "old-stock" terms - as "American" in opposition to southeastern European "new immigrants." It also examines working-class and Catholic Germans, who came to share a common identity with other European immigrants, but not with newly arrived black Southerners."

This book is a work of political archaeology. It focuses on the people and events at a particular colonial farm in Germantown, Pennsylvania; their stories provide a micro and macro view of economic, social, demographic, and agro-ecological change. Cresheim Farm shows how one mostly unknown but strategically placed piece of land—home to an extraordinary array of people, including early anti-slavery and anti-Nazi activists, the first woman editor of the Saturday Evening Post and a robber baron—can tell, affect and reflect the history of a nation. The writing is historically grounded and academic, future-oriented, deeply researched, and immediate. Cresheim Farm serves as a lens through which to observe and understand social forces, such as the launching point of freedom and democracy movements, white privilege, slavery, and genocidal westward expansion. The past lives on in all of us.

Extreme right-wing groups have always been a part of the American religious and political landscape. The era between the world wars, especially the 1930s, was a particularly volatile period, and by 1940, racist, nativist, and fascist groups had become so visible as to arouse public fears of insurrection and sabotage. In Hoods and Shirts, Philip Jenkins uses developments in Pennsylvania as a case study of the local activities and broader significance of organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Italian Black Shirts, the Silver Legion, the German-American Bund, and Father Coughlin's Christian Front. Pennsylvania's cities were a stronghold of several of the most active extremist movements, and Jenkins argues that while the threats they posed were often exaggerated to benefit the solidarity of the political mainstream, a loose coalition of dozens of these groups nevertheless constituted a formidable political presence in the state. In chapters on each of the major organizations, Jenkins traces their common commitment to a fascist agenda as well as the ethnic and religious differences that divided them. His comprehensive analysis sheds new light on how these right-wing movements influenced the mainstream of American politics in the interwar years. Originally published in 1997. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.